


And Some By Virtue Fall

by Nny



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 2x18, Angst, M/M, post-episode: SO2e18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 05:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11684925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nny/pseuds/Nny
Summary: Immediately post 2x18, Magnus POV.





	And Some By Virtue Fall

**Author's Note:**

> My first Shadowhunters ficlet, I'm sorry it's not longer. Be gentle!

He had known this was coming, of course. 

It did little to offer comfort, that knowledge, but it was enough - with the bite of dark nails into his palms, with the cold fury that still burned over Alec's lie - to hold him together until he was outside the Institute, until he could stumble through a portal that was filmed over with tears. 

His decision wasn't conscious, but he couldn't return to his apartment, not yet. It seemed fitting when he emerged into a grassy field, every blade edged with frost, Ragnor's abandoned home looming over the trees. Why not? Another reminder of his failure, one less fresh but dulled not at all by time; Ragnor had left the house to him of course, but Magnus hadn't returned since the wake, unable to face sorting through a lifetime of accumulated possessions, of shared memories. 

The door had an ominous creak, because Ragnor had always cultivated an image, as vain a creature as Magnus if rather less willing to move with the times. The house smelled stale, dusty, empty in a way that was difficult to define; a twitch of Magnus' fingers opened the windows and beckoned in a rush of air that set heavy drapes swinging and fluttered the pages of open books, left as though Ragnor would return any moment. 

Perhaps he'd been wrong. Perhaps this hurt worse. 

Magnus walked through to the library, slumping onto one of the fiddly ornate couches that were always more comfortable than anything but magic would allow. It was hard to breathe, but it would be harder still in his apartment, in a place where every single item had somehow changed to be important only in the context of Alexander. He drew in a shuddering breath, let it out again in broken pieces torn apart by the sobs that he could no longer swallow down. 

"Oh, my dear boy," a voice said, familiar tones of resigned affection, exasperated pity, "whenever will you learn?" 

Magnus took care not to lean into the ghostly brush of fingers through his hair; it was better to pretend this was real for a moment at least. He scrubbed at his eyes, hands smeared with black streaks, and tried desperately not to show how quickly he'd loved a boy with angel's blood, how hard the ground met those who dared to fall.

At his hip, his phone buzzed. He scrubbed his fingers against his lapel before opening Raphael's message -  _you're doing the right thing,_ which with Raphael's track record was really no comfort at all. He wanted to call Alexander. He wanted to scroll down to his contact picture, to the beautiful smile that he'd learned to wear openly, and take it all back. 

"I won't," he said hoarsely, to whatever shadow of Ragnor still lingered within these walls. "I can't. I love him." 

"You always love them," Ragnor said, and Magnus breathed out a laugh that tore at the inside of his chest. 

"Not like this," he said, and how he wished it could be a lie. 

"You'll have to redecorate," Ragnor told him, and this laugh was a little more genuine, because the idea that he could unearth Alexander Lightwood with nothing more than a few new throw pillows, a fresh coat of paint, was like trying to hide the Statue of Liberty by painting it to match the sky. His apartment had ceased to be his alone the very first night Alexander had stayed there, the very moment that Magnus' pillow cases took on a trace of his scent. 

"Can I stay here?" Magnus asked, asked a ghost, asked the nothing that he was left with. 

Because that was what happened when home ceased to be a place and became a feeling, instead. Became a smile and the clasp of long fingers and the warm weight of an embrace. Became a dark shirt draped over the back of the couch and a pair of boots placed precisely for tripping and sour morning kisses and almost inaudible snores. 

Magnus wiped at his eyes again, wiped away his warpaint, left himself vulnerable and open and broken and alone. 

"I can't go home," he said, and it had never been more true. 

 


End file.
